The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society

Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Joshua A. Fishman. Multilingual Matters, 76. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1991. 431 pp.

Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages

Double Talk: Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia. Kathryn A. Woolard. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989. 183 pp. $29.50 (cloth

Double Talk: Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia

In Spain, more than 40 % of the population lives in officially bilingual regions in which the minority language is used as a means of instruction at school and university. In addition, the increasing importance attached to learning English has led to the proliferation of multilingual school programs in which different languages are used to teach content. With this background in mind, this article analyzes students' motivation to learn Spanish, minority languages (Basque, Catalan, or Galician), and English (as the predominant foreign language). Because the percentage of immigrant students has steadily increased in the last 2 decades, special attention will also be paid to how they react to the multilingualism they have to face in the education system. The review of the literature will critically discuss the impact of global English on motivation to learn the other languages in contact and will examine the adequacy of current research approaches with a view to developing an agenda for needed research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language Learning Motivation and Language Attitudes in Multilingual Spain From an International Perspective.

This article analyses phonetic variation among young people who have learned a minority language in immersion schooling as part of revitalisation measures. Such speakers are increasingly referred to as ‘new speakers’ in an expanding body of literature. The variable phonetic features analysed are vowels, laterals, and intonation in the speech of new Gaelic speakers from Glasgow and the Isle of Lewis. Results support previous work suggesting that new speakers will sound different from ‘traditional speakers’. These results are discussed in terms of language contact, modes of acquisition in revitalisation situations, and the differing perceptions and ideologies surrounding how new speakers use Gaelic. The data also necessitate an examination of some of the assumptions in sociolinguistic models of change and their applicability to contexts of rapid social evolution

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0047404515000408

‘New’ Scottish Gaelic speakers in Glasgow: A phonetic study of language revitalisation

New speakers of Catalan have come to represent, from a demolinguistic perspective, a substantial part of the community of speakers. Of those who presently speak Catalan as an �habitual language�, 41.6 percent are native speakers of Spanish. In this article, we shall follow up the various ways in which native Castilian speakers incorporate Catalan into their lives. This happens, as we will show, in specific biographical junctures that we call mudes, a Catalan term referring to (often reversible) variations in social performance. Our analysis is based on a qualitative study that included 24 interviews and 15 focus groups covering a total of 105 people of different sexes and linguistic, educational, social and residential backgrounds. We shall give a general overview of these mudes as we typified them: when subjects entered primary school, secondary school, the university, the job market, when creating a new family and when they had children (if they did). The study of linguistic mudes provides, in our view, a new and productive perspective on how people develop their linguistic repertoire, their attachment to specific languages and the significance of these aspects for social identity. It facilitates a processual, time-sensitive analysis that allows to contextualise and critique ethnonationalist discourses that have often saturated our understanding of language use.

https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/ijsl.2015.2015.issue-231/ijsl-2014-0037/ijsl-2014-0037.xml

Linguistic mudes: how to become a new speaker in Catalonia

In this paper, we study the phenomenon of linguistic mudes or transformations in linguistic practices, in the case of highly proficient speakers of Irish, Basque and Catalan and we investigate the extent to which speakers in the three contexts share ideologies and experiences related to the process. Such an investigation will deepen understanding of the triggers behind the mudes and what it means to successfully become a new speaker of Irish, Basque or Catalan. This is necessary in order to develop a better understanding of how new speakers respond to the linguistic repertoires that they encounter in the various social milieus in which they navigate. The study relates to broader questions of policy towards the three languages in question: as all are operating within a revitalisation framework it is essential to understand the experiences of new speakers who have adopted the languages in order to guide future policy development.

'I'll Be One of Them': Linguistic Mudes and New Speakers in Three Minority Language Contexts.

Previous studies of linguistic mudes in minority language contexts, this is, biographical junctures where speakers enact changes in their linguistic repertoire, have contributed to our understandin...

‘Linguistic safe spaces and stepping stones: rethinking mudes to Catalan through the lens of space’

Aquest dossier de Digithum dedicat al que anomenem nous parlants de llengues minoritaries conte quatre articles d'una seleccio de ponencies que es van presentar al seminari internacional “Nous parlants: un concepte en construccio". Aquest seminari obert va tenir lloc a Barcelona del 9 a l’11 de desembre de 2013, organitzat pel grup de recerca reconegut (GRR) Llengua, cultura i identitat en l'era global (Identi.cat). L'objectiu del seminari era posar en comu el treball que s'estava portant a terme en el projecte de recerca " Nuevos hablantes, nuevas identidades: practicas e ideologias en la era post-nacional " (acr. NEOPHON) Ref. FFI2011-24781, que compta amb una ajuda del Ministeri d'Economia i Competitivitat del Govern espanyol, dins del Plan Nacional de I+D+i 2008-2011 . Els continguts presentats aqui tambe s'han beneficiat dels debats sobre el tema dels "nous parlants" en el marc de la xarxa europea COST, concretament l'Accio IS1306 anomenada " New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges ".

http://openaccess.uoc.edu/webapps/o2/bitstream/10609/104727/1/Puigdevall_Digithum_nousparlants_EN.pdf

Maite Puigdevall

Papers

Linguistic mudes: how to become a new speaker in Catalonia

'I'll Be One of Them': Linguistic Mudes and New Speakers in Three Minority Language Contexts.

‘Linguistic safe spaces and stepping stones: rethinking mudes to Catalan through the lens of space’

New Speakers of Minority Languages: Belonging and Legitimacy

Capítulo 6. Espacios de adopción del catalán, una aproximación etnográfica a las mudas lingüísticas en Cataluña